The rise of scooter sharing

Scooter sharing initiated in San Francisco about 5 years
ago. The past 2 years has been a tremendous growth. Nowadays there are around
30 cities with scooter sharing schemes and the majority of them are located in
Europe. Most of the cities host multiple operators, and this is a clear sign
that the market size is big enough, which allows multiple players to be
protagonists. The biggest fleets so far are in Berlin, Paris and Barcelona.
About half of the European fleet is concentrated in those cities. For instance,
in Berlin there are couple of thousands of scooters, as well as in Paris and
Barcelona. For the time being, the operators with the largest fleets are COUP,
emmy, Cityscoot & eCooltra. Nevertheless, there are also plenty of new ‘’rising
stars’’ which have entered the market dynamically, such as goUrban in Vienna,
EVO in Oberhausen, etc.

Of course things are not always so ideal. Thereby, during
this year several systems had to close. The main reasons (amongst others) were
the lack of support from the local authorities, the inability of fleet growth
and the dysfunctional technological system which couldn’t ensure the efficiency
of the operations. Consequently, city schemes had to close in cities like
Frankfurt, Hamburg, Paris, Rome, Milan and Catania. However, the closure of one
system in a particular city doesn’t signify the end of scooter sharing in this
specific area. On the contrary, other players are eager to replace the closed
schemes and make new opens, learning from the mistakes of others. This is a
clear sign that, albeit the market can be turbulent in certain moments,
nevertheless, it is still under constant development and growth.

Based on those facts, we can conclude that the cornerstone
of each sharing scheme is the technology behind it, which guarantees the proper
function of the holistic system, as well as the reliable vehicles that offer a
pleasant ride experience. Equally important is the relationship between the
operator and the local municipality which has to be collaborative. So, the
overall feedback which is expressed from the operators’ side is that technology
is the backbone of the whole sharing operation, because it ensures both the
maintenance of the fleet, as well as the direct customer support. COMODULE’s
principle is to offer the operators an agile product, tailor made to their
needs, in order to ensure the highest quality service for the riders.

Nowadays, most of the fleets are free floating systems with
two-wheel scooters which allow the riders to choose any vehicle is nearby them
and drop it off within a defined service area. During 2016 & 2017 there was
a boom in the market, hence, 8,000 scooters have been deployed all over the
world. According to the forecasts, this number is expected to grow and exceed
10,000 vehicles globally. Surprisingly, for some people, there is a speculation
that in the future, scooter sharing market will overpass car sharing industry!
The reason for that is twofold: a) the large potential which is mainly driven
due to lower capital investment needs and b) the ease that an operator can
deploy a fleet with great benefits for the social welfare.

There are several vehicle manufacturers that provide
vehicles to sharing business. Most of those vehicles are electric and the
minority are combustion scooters. Although combustion engines are costlier,
however electric scooters dominate the market. So far, dominant manufacturers
in this business are: Govecs, Gogoro & Torrot. Besides those manufacturers,
there are other prominent suppliers, such as emco, Genze, Kumpan, Kymco, and
others. Moreover, according to the Director of International, Joseph
Constanty, NIU is another company which is expected to play a dominant role in
the scooter sharing market is NIU from China. Another interesting insight comes
from the Key Account Manager of emco who anticipates that the future production
of sharing scooters will be doubled next year! From the side of combustion
manufacturers, key players are Piaggio, Yamaha and SYM.

The estimated number of registered users in scooter sharing
services approaches half million, and this fact shows the rapid growth of this
business in urban centres, as well as the need for change away from the
car-centric notion. The people who make use of this service are mostly young
and familiar with using technology. The proportion of usage between men and
women seems to be almost equally distributed between the two genders. The
scooters are mostly used wither for commuting from point A to point B or for
leisure time activities. Shared services are mainly used for short to medium
distances. The average distance made is around 3km per ride and the average
time is approximately half an hour. Based on researches, there are roughly 3
rentals per scooter daily. This service is mostly popular during the spring and
summer period, whereas the winter season there is a decrease in rentals due to
weather conditions.

Sources: Part of the information which are contained in this article came from Innoz Global Scootersharing Market Report 2017 & through direct discussions with people from the industry.